For the most part, using Steam to purchase your PC games comes with a number of advantages over boxed copies. Your games are available from multiple machines with a login, the horrible disc DRM is usually not present, the prices can be cheaper, there’s no discs to lose or stop working, and you get a bunch of community features and automatic patching thrown in.

However, a recent decision to ban a user account has reminded us all we don’t technically own the games bought through the service. If your account is banned, you can’t login and play your games. All that money you spent on tens, or even hundreds of titles doesn’t count for anything.

The example that proves this is the story of a Russian gamer who goes by the name of gimperial. He has a Steam account with over 250 games stored on it that he paid for legitimately, spending over $1,500 purchasing them. However, Steam decided to ban his account for a terms of service violation. The problem is, they wouldn’t tell him what rule had been broken, and Steam’s support service refused to respond to his tickets after initially confirming the ban.

Steam’s general rule is not to tell gamers why their account has been banned. So, as Steam does not have phone support, if you can’t get responses to emails and forum posts, there is nothing you can do other than hire a lawyer.

In this case gimperial managed to get his account reinstated, but only after Rock, Paper Shotgun highlighted his case and made waves. And gimperial still doesn’t know what he did wrong. The only rule he broke was gifting games for cash, but Steam didn’t know he was doing that and confirmed to him that wasn’t the reason for the ban.

This example highlights two things: Steam’s customer service team is less than great, and we don’t really own anything bought through the service. But that’s part of a wider issue: anything that is controlled through an online account and needs a login to play is governed by the company providing that login. If they ban you, or they cease to function as a service for whatever reason, your paid-for digital content may no longer be accessible. Megaupload users know exactly how that feels.

Online services of all forms can counteract this by offering exports for your data. However, while that may work for cloud based email, online storage and backups, or even applications, at the moment it isn’t an option for digital games. Your purchases remain tied to the service unless, like in the case of the Humble Indie Bundles and GOG, you get to download the games outright without DRM attached and without a login required to play them.

Reader Comments

Playfree556

can you get banned for copying someones name in-game?

Playfree556

please help meh

Charles

It’s good to see this being discussed. Steam is a game store, a direct competitor to Game Stop. The problem comes with them pretending that they are renting you games when they are clearly selling them to you (you can’t rent something with a one time fee). They refuse to take back games that they are legally obliged to take back (disagree with TOS or product not as advertised) and when you complain, well, there is literally no one to complain to. Even their giant tub of lard CEO ignored multiple snail mail letters I sent to him. Contesting the charges and chalking it up to a learning experience is all I could do. I hope this article keeps others from repeating my mistake. If you get it in your head to buy something from Steam, DON’T. If you still feel you must, accept that there will come a day that Steam will rob you. One day very soon a competitor will come along (and no, Origin is not a competitor, it’s an EA Boutique store) and they will compete by HAVING A FRIGGIN’ CUSTOMER SUPPORT LINE. If you take people’s money YOU MUST HAVE A MEANS FOR THEM TO ADDRESS PROBLEMS WITH THEIR PURCHASES. If I ran my business this way I’d be bankrupt in a week but Steam does it and they have their mentally damaged fan boys running around the web flaming anyone who has a complaint about this filthy, consumer unfriendly, criminal band of thugs.

Charles

They have done it to a great many other people. I threw away about $150.00 on Steam and learned the hard way that they hate their customers and they make sure you know it if you ever had a complaint. Seriously though, when I was considering whether or not to trust Steam with my purchase I never thought to consider to check whether or not they actually have a customer support number.

J

It doesnt cost money to constantly upgrade pcs anymore. Ive been using the same computer for 5 years with no problems on high quality new games.

j

in this case it sucks, but otherwise. Who cares? What did you do with your old pc games when you got sick of the games. After a while you threw them away or gave them away. The boxes were huge and cluttered up your storage.

This program allows you to re-dl your games in the distant future if for say you make a new friend and want to show them that old cool-ass game that you otherwise would have thrown out.

Kuzkula

Good. They don’t just outright ban you for no reason. Dumbass probably did something ban-worthy and BAM, that’s it. I don’t care how much you spend on your games or whatnot – When you abuse the system either by hacking or doing anything that takes away from the gaming community, you will be removed.